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2
Nov 2002 Karma
Storm
is back!
All
content Copyright 2001 Steve Bennett
There
is something so intrinsically vapid about the web, and I felt I couldn't
ever hope to fill that emptiness with my little animations, regardless
of what care and consideration I took in their construction. Karma
Storm
was quite a web site for a time, but I don't regret its passing. I like
to think of myself as someone who looked deeply into the possibilities
of the Web, deep enough to see that there is nothing down there at the
bottom other than pointless links that only serve to guide you further
and further away from your Self. by Steve
Bennett
Karma Storm
Animations
I
am trying to get some of the best of my animations back online. They
are all in .gif format - you won't see any flash here. These
animations were all generated with the POVRAY freeware ray tracer
except for a few rare mesh objects. I hope they serve their purpose,
which is to provoke thought, and perhaps on the rarest of occasions
...to silence it.
Steve
Bennett
October 2001
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All These Animations by Steve Bennett
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The Flight from Angband
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Heart of Stone |
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November Song
Sometimes
I find myself yearning for the silence of winter, for the feeling that the
world and I are inaccessible and remote from each other. There is a
fleeting barrier on some snowy midnights when nothing can reach into me -
the door is shut fast, and no one wishes to come in and no one wishes to
go out. All of Creation sleeps, dreaming in drifts, drifting in and out of
dreams. Even the sound of my own heartbeat is muffled, as if it too were
listening to the quiet November Song. |
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Godlet
There
is another window where I sometimes go, and I look through it. Not often
now. I became confused if I was looking in or looking out. That was bad
enough. Then I broke through that to a deeper confusion ...I began to
wonder if I was seeing or if I was being seen, pondering or being
pondered on. I find this thought deeply disturbing. But if my intuition
has not entirely failed me, these things we call doubt and confusion are
the uttermost foundations of Faith. And even if you believe in nothing,
then you believe in something, after all. Or maybe something believes in
you.
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Matters of Grave Concern
Our
Master has forgotten his students and his affairs, walking down a fiery
colonade preoccupied with some important matter. He has no time to spare
for thoughts of small consequence, such as you and me. Even the spirits of
fire that swirl around him cannot disturb his single-minded concentration,
and I suddenly felt ashamed, as though I were spying on him, although I
came here quite by accident. I had no way of knowing that I
was the important matter he was weighing, and that nothing could have been
of more concern to him. I slunk away like a thief, bitter and sundered
from my Self. That was long, long ago, but I still await some decision,
holding my breath along with the rest of mankind |
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Down There
The Pillars of Barad-Dur
They
are there, down there, the pillars of stony-iron that stretch endlessly in
all directions. They support the endless intolerable weight of our desires
and our fears, there, down there. They uphold the throne of the Dark Lord.
Almost I was reduced to ash in my sojourn there, beneath the mountain of
iron and the slag heaps, the molten pools and grottos, there. Down there I
traveled, but I will bring no further news to darken the light of day.
Only, do not ask me why my eyes are as cold as dead ashes, when my heart
burns like fire. Down there. |
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Depth
Escher's Fish
I
used to stared glibly at this print, and in
time I taught myself Escher's use of perspective. But I used to see these
fish swimming into and out of Infinity long before I ever saw a computer.
They always seemed bent on some purpose I thought, traveling in
unimaginable formations towards some goal, some secret destiny. And I also
sensed they were completely unconcerned with my life, they were part of
something that moved beneath the surface of our day-to-day Life, appearing
only briefly when viewed through some porthole or some special instrument.
Into Depth. |
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Desert Mosque
I
found it at fajr, the desert masjid on the cusp of the new moon. They took
me within their walls and treated my wounds. There at last I found
the coldest water the deepest well, and I stayed for many years within
that compound. I married into an ancient family and came to love
them as though they were my own. I knew from the beginning that I would
have to leave one day, but my bride and I were happy, for many many years.
I hope you don't think that I am just writing crazy things. These events
truly transpired.
They
taught me the suras like a child, and I finally came to realize
there was something of more importance in the universe than my self. I
learned to worship Allah from their hands, and if in the years since then
I have failed in that duty, there is no one to blame but myself.
They
are ahsan nas, the excellent people. |
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Starfish
When
these celestial animals burst into view, I am awed by their beauty. But
when they become so stongly evident (as they quickly do) that I can no
longer dismiss them by an act of will, I begin to feel as frightened of
them as I am of falling into that midnight abyss over which they writhe;
yet this is not a simple physical and instinctive fear like the other, but
rather a sort of philosophical horror at the thought of a cosmos in which
rude pictures of beasts and monsters have been painted with flaming suns.
(Wolfe) |
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Dragons in Moonlight
I
always write in obscure allegory, I have my reasons. My life is too
strange, and now it has become too long to just lay it out in a line or
two, I would have to be quite a story teller to do that. But there are
some things I can tell you of ... Once upon a time.... I ....
Once
I sat frozen in fear, watching battalions of dragons winging through a
darkened forest in late October. This was around the year of odd one,
maybe two. It was the time of the Preacher. |
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Daughter of the Djinn
The Dragons
take flight at sunset, sworn to uphold a terrible vow. It is the face
of my Love that has launched them, for I have stolen the Daughter of
the Djinn, and they seek us still.
Maisoun
was kind enough to pose for this vignette of a moment in time, when Time
stopped... for a moment. |
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Gravity
August 2, 2002
My words have all
left me now, they stole away in the night taking anything of value with
them.
[March
8, 2002]
I have to change this 'blurb' when I get around to it. Actually now I am
intensely employed in a position that is above my station, but the pay is
too good to retreat from it. It's a blustery day in March, with wonderful
lowering clouds and the balcony shades are rattling with the wind through
the open panels. It's Friday I should be at prayer, but this is my day off
now and about the only chance I have to just chill for a bit.
Middleman
died from acute kitty leukemia a few weeks ago, there's just an inky little
place in my mind where he used to be.
Every
time I come home I expect to see him angrily demanding to be fed, or
sleeping in my chair. I must have sat on him a thousand times, and neither
he or I ever got good at avoiding that. He had a viking funeral as I
believe he would have wished, and he's buried here close to his old
stompin' grounds.
Maisoun
is gone now, too. |
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Animating
Dawn
is here again I'm up early as usual, I usually can't wait to hop and get
busy doing nothing. Maisoun is gliding through her many-grottoed dreams
and I think I will go back to bed. I just went through and deleted
everything not actually on this website and it all fits on a floppy.
Guess I didn't really need that 160-gig hard drive after all. Listening
to the usual dark soundtracks while my little space heater melts the
headphone wire. Guess I should go back to bed. I'll be working nights
now, happy to have work in these not-so-hot days, so this is the way you
may find me if you came here without an invitation. And sorry about the
mess! But you really should have called before you came, I could've had
tea ready.
Danny
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Karma
Cam
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Relics
of Childhood
by Steve Bennett 40
sec @ 56k
Steve has been writing very down lately. I hope he is
alright. GWW
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